Date:         Thu, 6 Jan 2005 16:52:39 -0800
Reply-To:     cassell.david@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         "David L. Cassell" <cassell.david@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV>
Subject:      Re: macro loop vs datastep loop
In-Reply-To:  <200501062220.j06MKghp016324@listserv.cc.uga.edu>
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

Ben <benpub7@YAHOO.COM> wrote:
> data x;
> input v $ @@ ;
> datalines;
> L M M X
> ;
> run;
>
> How could I translate L to Ldrug, M to Mdrug , X to Xdrug?

Okay, I don't think you need a loop of any sort - other than
the implicit loop in a DATA step.  You have read in the data
so that each value of V is in a separate record, instead of
trying to shove them all as different variables in a single
record.  Good!

So all you need to do (if I understand what you want) is to
append the letters 'drug' onto the end of each value of V.
That's straight forward:


data temp2;
  set x;
  v = trim(v)||'drug';
  run;

proc print noobs; run;


Why do I have that TRIM() in there?  Well, you read in your
values of V without telling SAS anything other than that they are
character.  So they got a default length of 8.  (Check out a PROC
CONTENTS of your data set above to see this.)  That means that the
values look like a single letter, followed by 7 blanks.  If you
try to concatenate anything onto that, you'll have the single letter,
then 7 blanks, then new stuff.. which has to be truncated to fit in
the width of 8, so all the new stuff gets lost.  Try it yourself
without the TRIM() part in there.

HTH,
David
--
David Cassell, CSC
Cassell.David@epa.gov
Senior computing specialist
mathematical statistician